


all hearts and flowers

by Duck_Life



Series: Femslash February 2019 [1]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Crying, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2019, Flowers, Getting to Know Each Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 02:12:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17654060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: After getting lost in the X-Mansion, Cecilia stumbles upon what used to be Ororo's greenhouse. (Set around X-Men #72.)





	all hearts and flowers

Cecilia tugs open the attic door out of curiosity and jumps a little at the clatter of the ladder unfolding. Her grandmother’s house had an attic like this, tucked up and hidden away. That attic had smelled of mothballs and old books, water-stained cardboard boxes and the newspapers that her abuelita had hoarded. 

This attic smells like nothing at all. Antiseptic, vacant, sort of like the hospital. She shrugs and climbs up the ladder— she doesn’t have anything better to do. All the X-Men are preoccupied with X-business and the legal matter of the deed to the house and the soap opera of Rogue and Gambit. In her few nights here in Westchester, she’s gotten a crash course in X-Men nonsense. It’s giving her a headache, and she was looking forward to taking a nap, but in the winding halls of the mansion she lost her way. 

The attic, she thinks, is as good a place as any to get some peace and quiet. But when she sticks her head up through the opening, she’s startled to find that someone else is already there. “Oh! Hey, sist— ah, Storm,” she says, clambering the rest of the way up the ladder. “Sorry, I was trying to find the room where Kentucky put my air mattress but I got kinda… lost. I saw the door on the ceiling and just… wanted to explore.” 

The attic looks huge for its emptiness, just a chasm of wood beams and floorboards. There’s a single window in the slanted roof, letting sunlight pour into the vacant space. Storm stands, tall and stoic as ever, on the opposite side of the room from the door. 

“What is this place?” Cecilia wonders aloud. 

Storm says mournfully, “It  _ was _ my greenhouse.” She steps away from the spot where she was standing, and Cecilia can see that there is indeed a single potted plant hanging from the ceiling, something green and lush with one pink bloom. “And… you can just call me Ororo, Dr. Reyes.”

“Well. You can just call me Cecilia, Ororo,” Cecilia says, pulling the ladder up behind her and shutting the door. Ororo’s presence alone keeps any room from feeling stuffy, even an attic. She’s like a walking humidifier and an air conditioner rolled into one, which, last week, Cecilia would have found ridiculous. Now, she finds it oddly charming. “So this was a greenhouse?”

Ororo nods. “I came here to tend to my plants, and to clear my mind,” she explains. “This whole room was covered in green. I had flowers from Cairo, Kenya, Wakanda… from South America, from Hawai’i, from Japan. This attic… it was like its own little world, with little pieces of the world out there all represented.” She sighs, wistful, and it kind of breaks Cecilia’s heart. She’s never heard anyone sound so heartfelt about  _ plants _ . “My mutation, my abilities— they have so much potential for destruction. And as leader of the X-Men, I’m used to using them in that way. When I’m in here, though… I get to use my powers to give each plant the climate it needs to thrive. Why, I can have birds of paradise growing right next to—” She gestures across the room, only to be met with that awful, aching emptiness. Ororo drops her hand, and there are actual  _ tears _ on her face. 

Cecilia panics. “Hey… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve pried—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Ororo says, wiping furiously at the tears on her face. Cecilia’s pretty sure she actually summons a sharp wind to stop the tears. Jeez. 

“Ororo,” Cecilia says. “It’s okay.” As if anything’s okay. As if the world hasn’t gone irrevocably crazy and there’s not a damn thing that can fix it. Before really making the decision to do it, she’s crossed the room in her clumsy attempt to comfort the weather goddess. 

A tiny, bitter part of her wants to be mean, wants to point out that she has lost her whole  _ life _ while Ororo has only lost a few stupid plants. But then she remembers how long Ororo’s been on this team. She already gave up her whole outside life, years ago. God… were the plants that used to be in this room the only thing in her life not tied to the X-Men? 

“I, um. I know we don’t know each other that well,” Cecilia says. “But I know that you’re going through a lot of shit you don’t deserve. And I’m sorry for that.”

Ororo looks up at her, smiling despite the tears still shining in her eyes. “Thank you. That’s… that’s very sweet of you.”

_ Sweet _ . No one on  _ Earth _ has ever called Cecilia Reyes  _ sweet _ . She considers taking it as an insult, but then she shrugs off that little bitter voice and refocuses on Ororo. “Tell me about your plants.”

Ororo’s face lights up. “It was  _ beautiful _ ,” she says. “Every corner of the room was overflowing with… with  _ life _ and beauty. I’d start little rain showers to make sure everyone got plenty of water. There’s a hardware store in Salem Center where I used to get potting soil.” She nudges the potted plant hanging beside her. “That’s where I bought this one.” 

“It’s lovely,” Cecilia says. “What is it?”

“Trailing fuchsia,” Ororo answers easily, looking down at the flower with all the pride of a mother looking at a child. Watching her with the plant, Cecilia has to admit that Ororo takes on another air, another persona. She is not Storm, Goddess of the Earth and Sky and she is not Storm, Leader of the X-Men. 

She’s just Ororo.

“I’m clipping away the dead leaves and stems to make room for new buds,” Ororo explains, holding up her pruning shears. 

Cecilia steps forward, hesitant. “Can… can I help?” 

“Oh,” Ororo says, surprised. “Of course.” She hands out the shears the Cecilia, and when Cecilia takes them she swears there’s a little spark as their fingers brush. And not a romantic one (although judging by the stupid little flutters in her stomach, it might as well be. Ororo’s the most gorgeous woman she’s ever met, period.) No, there’s a very literal spark of electricity when their fingers touch. 

“Oof!”

“I’m sorry,” Ororo says, looking embarrassed. “My powers… I tend to have a lot of electricity running through my body all the time. You should see me trying to do laundry. The static cling… it’s atrocious.”

Cecilia laughs despite herself.  _ Did Ororo just crack a joke _ ? “Sounds like a good excuse to get you out of doing the laundry,” she points out, grinning.

“Laundry’s so tedious anyway,” Ororo points out. “I’ve been trying to advocate for a nudity policy for years.”

Cecilia laughs so hard and so suddenly that she practically chokes on her own spit. She laughs even harder when it occurs to her that Ororo  _ isn’t _ joking. “Wow.” 

“Yes, well, I’ve never been able to get everyone on board,” she points out, smiling. “Perhaps with Scott and Jean leaving, and so many new members joining the team…”

And now Cecilia is picturing Ororo strutting around naked, and, yeah, that’s not exactly a helpful image. It’s a damn good thing the team telepath moved out. “Um,” she sputters, looking from the shears in her hand to the plant. “What do I do?”

“Oh, here,” Ororo shows her, pointing out a yellowish-brown leaf. “Clip that one.”

Cecilia does. “That’s it?” 

“And now the fuchsia can grow, healthily,” Ororo says, brushing her thumb lovingly against the petals. “It’s important work.” And despite their kidding around, despite the talk of laundry and nudity, she sounds about to cry again. “I had plants in here that I had been tending to since my first year as an X-Man,” she says, her voice full of loss and longing. “And now, because of Bastion… it’s all gone.” 

Cecilia sets the shears down and puts her hand gently over Ororo’s, trying to see the flower the way she sees it. This isn’t just some plant. It’s promise. It’s a representation of everything this room used to be, and will be again. It’s beautiful. 

“This is a good start,” Cecilia says. 

“Yes…” Ororo agrees, and Cecilia’s suddenly self-conscious about the fact that they’re sort of, kind of holding hands. She slides her own hand back, worried she’s made the talk uncomfortable. But Ororo’s smiling. “It’s a good start,” she agrees. 


End file.
